NBA Basketball Key (image courtesy Wikimedia) These are the best 5 NBA franchises of all time, in my opinion. I include the team’s best point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, center, and 6th best player. I also calculate chemistry. For example, Steph Curry, Michael Jordan, Kevin Durant, Charles Barkley, and Shaq would not be the best team ever, even though they are some of the best players ever. There is only one ball, so five of the best scorers who just aren’t great passers would not work. 5. Golden State Warriors PG: Steph Curry SG: Klay Thompson SF: Kevin Durant PF: Draymond Green C: Wilt Chamberlain Sub: Tim Hardaway It’s surprising to see Draymond Green as the Warriors best power forward. You’re probably thinking, “there had to be someone better, right?” I know some old Warriors power forwards who weren’t as good as Draymond Green, but I can’t think of any who were better. The reason the Warriors are not 3rd or 4th best is only that they have too many pure scorers. 4. Chicago Bulls PG: Derick Rose SG: Michael Jordan SF: Scottie Pippen PF: Dennis Rodman C: Artis Gilmore Sub: Jimmy Butler For this to work, it would have to be the MVP, uninjured Derick Rose. Artis Gilmore is a Hall of Famer, along with Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, and of course, the G.O.A.T. [Greatest of All Time], Michael Jordan. Jimmy Butler is a rising All-Star for the Timberwolves, but I still count him as a Bull. 3. San Antonio Spurs PG: Tony Parker SG: George Gervin SF: Kahwi Leonard PF: Tim Duncan C: David Robinson Sub: LaMarcus Aldridge This is the opposite of a selfish team. If you watch the Spurs play, you can see their ball and player movement, and also their unselfishness. Adding “The Iceman” and ‘The Admiral” would be safe because neither one of them were selfish players. 2. Los Angeles Lakers PG: Magic Johnson SG: Kobe Bryant SF: Elgin Baylor PF: Kareem Abdul Jabbar C: Shaquille O’Neal Sub: Jerry West The hardest thing about this was positioning Kareem and Shaq. They are both almost the definition of center. Kareem is a bit more athletic than Shaq, so I put him at power forward. Hopefully Magic Johnson will make up for Kobe’s selfishness. Having Mr. Clutch (Jerry West) definitely helps. 1. Boston Celtics PG: Kyrie Irving SG: Paul Peirce SF: Larry Bird PF: Kevin McHale C: Bill Russell Sub: Bob Cousy What???!! Kyrie Irving? He hasn’t even played ten games for the Celtics! But, he has the most points of any Celtic for his first five games. It’s hard to argue that they are not the best team though. Which other team has 17 championships? This is like combining all of the NBA’s eras. First, the earliest era (Bob Cousy). Then, the Bill Russell era. Then, the Bird/Johnson era. Then, the beginning of the modern era (Paul Peirce). Then, the Future era (Kyrie Irving).
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
World Peace, Piano Music by Rik Bhattacharyya, 12
Rik Bhattacharyya, who is twelve, in 2017 wrote this piano piece in response to some of the turmoil taking place in the world today. This is his thinking behind the piece: Currently our world is going through a lot of turmoil. Whether it is about missile testing in North Korea or terrorist attacks in France, we have all heard about these problems between nations, religions, ethnicity, etc. In my composition there are parts where there are minor chords making the whole song seem sad. However, sooner or later the violence stops (denoted by the major chords and arpeggios) and the world is happy again. [youtube url=”https://youtu.be/7WVm-oVJA74″ autoplay=”no”]
Saturday Newsletter: November 4, 2017
A note from William Rubel We did it! Or, to be more accurate, Jane Levi, our rock of competence, has shepherded this project to completion. The Stone Soup 2017 annual is being published in response to so many of you saying how much you miss print and how important having Stone Soup in print form is to you. The Stone Soup Annual is 350 pages. It is a magnificent book. Full colour, every issue for the year, plus bonus material from the website. We selected a high quality paper in keeping with Stone Soup’s long-standing production values. The book weighs over one pound! What you will get are the print issues from the first half of the year and the digital issues from the second half of the year all bound together in one volume: eight issues covering January to December 2017. Also in the volume you will find work by winners of our contests, selected posts from our young bloggers, and music written by our Stone Soup composers. The issues inside the volume are formatted exactly as the Stone Soup print issues have been for years. The cover and new material are designed by one of London’s most sought after designers of art museum catalogues. We will also be using a new design from Joe Ewart for our monthly issues starting in January 2018. Joe brings a freshness and energy to his design that I know you will all appreciate, and which I think you will agree lives up to the quality of our contributors’ work. This is a book that is a pleasure to hold and to look at as well as to read. The Stone Soup Annual is finalised and at the printer. In publishing terms, it is “forthcoming”. We are expecting delivery of our piles of books in early December, ready to ship out. Later in the year we will have a new subscription system in place so you will be able to order a digital subscription plus the print Annual as a bundle for next year. In the meantime, you need to order the print Annual 2017 separately. Please go to our online store, Stonesoupstore.com, and order your copies. I’d like to close by encouraging you to listen to “Let This be the World”, a lovely song without words sung by Kathleen Werth, also the artist responsible for the magnificent cover of our first Stone Soup Annual, 2017. Until next week, William Bloggers There are several new blog posts up from our new young bloggers, so do please visit our website to read them and comment. We’ve been delighted by the response they’ve had so far. If you are a young writer and have something you want to say on our blog, let me know. The November Issue is online now – don’t miss it! We wrote to everyone on Wednesday announcing the November issue of Stone Soup. If you haven’t had a chance yet to read it, do make some time to go to our website this weekend and enjoy the fantastic selection of stories, poems and artworks we’ve chosen for you this month. Congratulations to all our talented contributors! Also, if you didn’t get our email about the new issue, please check your spam folder and make sure you have told your system you want to receive email from us (assuming you do!). We won’t ever bother you with email you don’t want (you can unsubscribe any time at the bottom of our emails), but we certainly don’t want you to miss out on any new material, especially when it’s the current issue off your magazine. From Stone Soup May/June 2004 The Lone Wolf By Preston Craig, 10 Illustrated by J. Palmer, 13 Alexis Jamison looked thoughtfully at the young gray wolf anxiously pacing the enclosure. “You’ve got green eyes. That’s odd. Did you know that most gray wolves have gold eyes, or yellow even?” Alexis Jamison looked thoughtfully at the young gray wolf anxiously pacing the enclosure. “You’ve got green eyes. That’s odd. Did you know that most gray wolves have gold eyes, or yellow even?” The wolf whined fearfully, a pup’s apprehensive sound, and Alex looked helplessly at it. “I can’t do anything yet,” she continued bitterly. “You’re going to be released, don’t you know that? What’s your name, anyway?” She looked at the piece of paper tacked lopsidedly to the fence, her father’s practically illegible handwriting spelling out the words: Lupus. Gray wolf. Approximately two years old. “Lupus, is that your name then?” Alex said interestedly. “Good name for a gray wolf.” Lupus whined again. “Oh, Lupus,” she murmured, her voice breaking. She jumped to her feet, put a hand against the fence briefly, then tore herself away and strode toward her house, trying hard to keep from turning back to Lupus. The cool Alaskan air bit at Alex as she walked across the field of dying grass. She was used to wolves; there were plenty here at the gray wolf release center her father had begun four years ago. She had come here every summer since her parents split up when she was six. Alex had learned everything there was to know about endangered gray wolves from her father, and was already able to help him with his work. She didn’t usually let herself get attached to any of the wolves, knowing they were eventually going to be released and she’d never see them again, but she was curiously interested in Lupus… /more
